Hawthorn have turned the tables on Geelong in fitting fashion, coming back from a seemingly hopeless position to beat the Cats for the first time since the 2008 AFL grand final and reach this year’s decider.
The Cats had produced comebacks time and again during their 11-game winning streak against Hawthorn.
This time, it was the Hawks who came back from 20 points down at the last change to win a classic preliminary final 14.18 (102) to 15.7 (97) in front of 85,569 fans at the MCG on Friday night.
They buried their Cats hoodoo with a 4.8 to 1.1 last quarter, almost shooting themselves in the foot with the inaccuracy that dogged them all night, as they ended with 10 more scoring shots than Geelong but snuck home by just five points.
Geelong’s Travis Varcoe had a chance to tie the game with a little more than 20 seconds to play, but his 30m shot was just off target.
Veteran midfielder Sam Mitchell was outstanding all night for the Hawks with his constant ball-winning, amassing 38 disposals and 11 clearances.
Shaun Burgoyne was also superb with his poise with the ball and three goals, including the snap which put the Hawks in front in time-on in the last quarter.
Steve Johnson was brilliant for the Cats, with four goals to go with his excellent midfield work and 32 disposals.
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The Hawks’ win sets up a potential grand final rematch with Sydney – who downed Hawthorn in last year’s decider – or a clash with Fremantle, who face the Swans in the other preliminary final in Perth on Saturday night.The Hawks had entered the match hot favourites, on the back of a break last weekend after thrashing Sydney in their qualifying final, and having regained star forwards Lance Franklin and Cyril Rioli.
But it was a nervous night throughout.
The Hawks controlled the game in general play early, but trailed 3.5 to 4.0 at quarter-time after some poor misses.
The Cats seized control early in the second term and, while the Hawks dominated later in the quarter, their kicking for goal again cost them and they led by just four points at the main break.
Geelong then produced what seemed a match-winning seven-goals-to-three third quarter, highlighted by a brilliant two-bounce running goal from youngster Cameron Guthrie and Johnson’s fourth major.
Everything seemed to be running the Cats’ way when, just before three-quarter time, a ball that appeared to go out on the full off a Geelong boot was instead ruled a throw-in, from which Jordan Murdoch snapped a goal with six seconds left in the term.
It put Geelong 20 points up, but the Hawks showed enormous desperation in the last quarter as the Cats tired, although it was not until after the 22-minute mark that they hit the lead.
Even then, they kept Geelong in the hunt with four behinds to stretch a two-point lead to six, before Varcoe’s miss allowed them to hold on.
Jack Gunson finished with four goals.
Franklin was quiet with just one, well held by Tom Lonergan, and will possibly be playing his last game for the club in the grand final, given he is to decide after the season whether he’ll stay with the Hawks or head to Greater Western Sydney.
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The win gives the Hawks a shot at their first premiership since 2008 and puts veteran defender Brian Lake into his first grand final, after he was part of three preliminary final losses with his previous club the Western Bulldogs from 2008-10.
Hawthorn youngster Brendan Whitecross went off in the last quarter with what is believed to be a serious knee injury.
Hawks coach Alastair Clarkson said it would be confirmed in coming days whether Whitecross had ruptured his anterior cruciate ligament.
The coach admitted to extreme nerves as the game went down to the wire.
“It’s jumpy for all coaches and those blokes in the box,” he said.
“You work so hard throughout the course of the year, your whole life seems to hang on the balance of a result in a sense.
“But it’s great reward for our players that they were able to really dig deep and fight hard and get ourselves a chance to play in another grand final.”
As well as losing Whitecross for the grand final, the Hawks will have other players nursing minor injuries this week, with Franklin (elbow), Paul Puopolo (ankle) and Brent Guerra (corked thigh) also copping some damage.
Clarkson said the hard-running nature of the match would also have an affect.
Cats coach Chris Scott said the overriding feeling for him was pride in his players despite the devastation of narrowly missing out on another grand final.
“I think they’ve just been stellar this season,” Scott said.
“We’ve had to work through some adversity, I know all teams do, but we have a lot to look forward to.
“We put ourselves in a position where we could have played in another grand final.
“We weren’t quite good enough on the night, Hawthorn were.”
